And the Raven Quoth
by shadow-of-the-fallen
Summary: (I'm finishing up chapter 2...hope to post it soon) A mysterious girl. A frightening connection and it all seems worse when no one believes you...Will Harry learn anything from this exerience?


Disappearing Shadows  
/  
  
A light summer breeze blew serenely through an open window on the second floor of 12 Grimmauld Place on a late afternoon in August. Passersby would see no such building as they strolled aimlessly along the road. They would pass numbers 11 and then 13 and pay no mind. To them, there existed no number 12. But there also subsisted another faint difference with these passersby; they were not members of the Order of the Phoenix. Even if they had been of wizarding blood, had they not been privy to the house's existence, they too, like their Muggle neighbors, would walk blindly down the street.  
  
As the wind sailed through that window on the invisible dwelling, faint footsteps reverberated in the hall. Inside this amazing edifice, a small group of devoted individuals work to promote goodness in the wizarding community. While that is all nice and good, they bear no importance to this tale. The light footfalls belong to a boy, a boy with jet-black hair and dazzling emerald eyes.  
  
The footsteps draw nearer to the room with the open window. Young Harry Potter does not know why he is taking this course through the house. He was simply on his way to the kitchen when he suddenly had the urge to explore this particular hallway. The rooms that branched off were seldom used as the house had enough rooms elsewhere to accommodate its inhabitants. So, the 16-year-old made is way down the hall towards the last room on the right. The door stood ajar and as he reached it and pushed it open, a peculiar thing happened. All external light faded and the room appeared as if it were night.  
  
As his eyes adjusted to the dramatic change, he took in the ambiance of the room. There was a small brick fireplace on the west wall. Directly in front of it sat an antique armchair. In the distorted light, it appeared to be reddish-brown, not very attractive to the youthful onlooker. Where windows should have resided was a large gray mass, like a small patch of fog. That struck the boy as odd but then again, he wasn't very used to wizarding houses. After all he'd only ever stayed at the Weasley's or here. Stepping farther into the room, he saw a bed. It looked as if it could sleep three or four adults with plenty of room to spare. He took a step towards the bed to get a closer look. Upon more in-depth scrutiny, he thought he saw a body draped across the width of the structure.  
  
His eyes now accustomed to the dim surroundings determined that the figure was female. She had dark hair, almost as dark as his. Her whole body seemed to be haloed by a purple haze. Her lips, which appeared to be rimmed with a faint blue, were parted slightly. She wore tight fitting black slacks that accentuated her slight form. She wore a long sleeved tunic that fell halfway down her body, made of the same dark, taut material as the slacks. Her skin seemed eerily translucent, reminding him of Snape. She appeared to be dead, lifeless. This thought of stumbling upon a dead body set his stomach on edge. While he had seen people die, coming across this person freaked him out.  
  
Somehow, she looked peaceful yet in pain at the same time. He reached out his hand tentatively to touch her cheek. He brushed the tip of his finger against it and found that it was smooth, smooth and warm. 'How odd' he thought. As his finger made contact with her skin, her eyes shot open and her hand flew out and grasped his wrist, pulling it away from her body. He tried to scream but the sound caught in his throat. He was looking straight into deep, dark, piercing blue eyes. He was mesmerized by their seemingly endless deepness. It was if he forgot to scream.  
  
She sat up briefly and gazed into his dazed and confused green eyes. It seemed that her firm grasp upon his wrist was all that was keeping her from falling over back into her previous position. Harry finally tore away from her gaze and looked down at her hand. On her middle finger, she wore a gold signet ring, adorned with the engraving of a small five-feathered arrow.  
  
Without warning she began to loosen her iron grip on his aching wrist and began sliding backwards. This sudden change in pressure took the dark- haired teen by surprise. However, instead of letting go completely and falling, the girl slid her hand up until their hands where palm against palm. A shiver shot through Harry's body. His hand tingled as if there was some electric current passing between the two figures in the room enshrouded by unnatural darkness. Again her magnetic gaze swallowed him. In that moment, Harry heard a voice, a female voice and figured it to somehow belong to this ethereal creature in front of him.  
  
"From your soul darkness gone and nothing more," the voice whispered inside his head.  
  
And then she was gone. Upon her swift departure, the room brightened. Harry had to close his eyes to augmented amount of sunlight that hit his sensitive retinas. After several minutes, he slowly opened his eyes and peered about him. The fireplace was still as it was in the darkness. However, the chair was not a reddish-brown but rather a deep navy blue. Directly to his left, where the 'fog' had resided were open windows letting in fresh air and beaming sunshine. Harry spun around himself several times to make sure he was seeing the room correctly. He knew that only moments before it had been dim and dreary and that a girl had been lying on the bed. He shook his head to try and clear it but the phrase the girl had spoken in his mind kept repeating itself, 'From your soul darkness gone and nothing more'.  
  
"What does that mean?" he muttered to himself in utter frustration.  
  
"Who was she?" he asked the air around him.  
  
With one last look around the room he turned and left, heading up to the third floor to find his friends. He found them in the girls' bedroom. Hermione sat on one bed, pouring over a large book. Ginny and Ron occupied the other bed, engrossed in a rather dull game of Wizard Chess. The famous teen strode quietly into the room and sat down on the floor next to the Weasleys.  
  
"Guys, I have to tell you something," he said quietly but urgently.  
  
All three of his companions looked at him, waiting for what he had to say. Hermione joined him on the floor. He took a deep, steadying breath before he began.  
  
"I was wandering down a hallway on the second floor and I walked into the room at the end on the right. It was really dark, like it was foggy outside," he began.  
  
"Harry it's sunny out," Hermione interjected.  
  
"I know that!" he spat.  
  
"Anyways, there was a girl lying a bed. She was really pretty. She had dark hair and deep blue eyes, but she looked dead," he continued.  
  
The group let out a collective gasp. The girls exchanged looks of fear and Ron gulped rather loudly.  
  
"But she was warm when I touched her," he added.  
  
"She grabbed my hand. It scared the life out of me. And then I heard this voice in my head," he said, shuddering at the memory.  
  
The three Gryffindors stared at him in disbelief and shock. It wasn't normal for anyone, even a wizard, to hear voices. They'd had that discussion in their second year when Harry had begun hearing the basilisk.  
  
"From your soul darkness gone and nothing more," Harry repeated slowly.  
  
"What is that supposed to mean?" Hermione queried arrogantly.  
  
"I don't know!" Harry exclaimed in an exasperated tone.  
  
"Then she just disappeared...and the room got all bright," he finished.  
  
"Harry that's impossible. A person can't make a room all dark and then just disappear and the room gets bright," Ginny countered.  
  
"Yeah mate, Ginny's right," Ron vouched.  
  
"You guys don't believe me?" Harry asked, hurt.  
  
"Well it does seem very improbable," Hermione stated.  
  
"I can't believe you lot don't believe me!" the dark haired boy grumbled.  
  
"If I'd said it was Voldemort that I saw would you have believed me?" he shouted angrily.  
  
"Well maybe it was...did your scar hurt?" Ginny asked.  
  
"No my scar didn't hurt!" he yelled.  
  
"Harry calm down," Ron ordered, looking his friend straight in the eyes.  
  
"No! Why don't you all believe me?" he begged as he began pacing around the room.  
  
"It's not that we don't believe you," Hermione began.  
  
"It just doesn't sound like it actually happened," Ginny finished.  
  
"Well it did," Harry muttered and stalked out of the room.  
  
"I didn't want to lie to him," Ginny said quietly.  
  
"None of us did Ginny," Hermione said, consoling her friend.  
  
The following week passed in stiff silence and tedium. Harry had not forgiven his friends for not believing his tale of the mysterious girl. He hadn't in fact, come across the girl even though he visited the room every day until they left for Hogwarts. As the group collected last minute items before departing for Kings Cross Station, Harry did one last sweep of the room of disappearing shadows. It was shadow-less. Sighing, he grabbed his trunk and Hedwig's cage and joined the rest of the Weasleys and Hermione to head off to the station.  
  
Once on the train, Harry let his thoughts wander back to the room and the girl. She'd reminded him a bit of his father, with her deep blue eyes and dark hair. He shook his head at the thought. As he replayed the scene in his mind for what might have been the millionth time that week, he tried to focus on just her, how she looked before and after he touched her. The one thing that stood out in his mind was that her lips had retained that bluish outline. He wondered what all of this meant and whether it was something to really worry about or whether it was just his mind playing tricks on him to keep him occupied from the past months events. 


End file.
